mattp

That would tend to skew the process a little, wouldn't it? Of course, I doubt that David or anybody else on that committee would have approved putting so many bolts so close together on the Nevermind Wall that you can't tell one route from another without the topo, and then squeezing another one inbetween it all - or did they? I don't want to start a debate over that particular wall, but my guess is that this is a clear example of how the committee did not or could not control that particular event, but I would guess that there were other proposals that they did in fact successfully control. Does anybody know? And does anybody know if the existence or actions of that committee had any positive or negative effect on any management decision made by the State?

I agree with both of these statements, Cavey. Flamewars and bolt chopping DO help sometimes. I would put it even stronger: they may be absolutely necessary sometimes. But they are not necessarily the ONLY answer to the issue. It is a world of insanity, to be sure. Why else are we all trading insults on the internet instead of celebrating all of our uniquely individual inner peace and beauty and celebrating the beautiful endeavor that we have come to know as rock climbing?

There is no doubt that, for the most part, participating in these types of committees has been a nightmare. However, even if you attended and were angered by what took place at, say, a Frenchmen's Coulee Climber's Coalition meeting, you will never know what might have happened had there not been such meetings. The question "can these committees succeed" is a slightly different one from the question as to whether, on balance, these committees do more good than harm. I really don't have much direct experience with any group like this but, for example, how many people know that there is such a committee for North Bend? Has it helped at all?

Mr. Cramer: I do not intend to suggest that we at cc.com should take it upon ourselves to be the rock police. Perhaps that is a serious flaw in the way I wrote the poll. I should have said, for example, "Bolted cracks are showing up every day and the practice is threatening crack climbing in the State. There should never be any bolts next to cracks at any climbing area, trad or sport" without connecting any remedy to this statement. Obviously, what you call good pro, somebody else may not approve of. RP's can be OK, though -- for example, the crux move of Davis-Holland is protectable only with RP's, isn't it? But you can place six of them if you want to. My point with the poll was to see what people think, and although I admit I need to go back to school on how to write a fair poll, I bet we would find that most climbers are more in agreement with the middle two options rather than an absolute ban on bolted cracks in all conceiveable situations or an absolute free-for-all. You and others are right when they say we are not likely to reach an agreement on these issues through an on-line debate at cc.com, and I certainly don't mean to imply that we could or should be making the decisions for climbers state-wide in THIS forum.

Cavey- You must not be reading very carefully. I have stated, several times in the last two days, that I think Dwayner and Pope have valid points to make. And you know what? I actually agree with some of what they say. Yes, I am attacking them. Personally. I believe they go out of their way to insult people instead of simply saying where they disagree. They haven't answered this, but I'll ask you: do you think that they invite honest or thoughtful debate when they go out of their way to insult people?

Bring back reality.* I agree. I have ALWAYS said that EVERYBODY has a valid opinion on these matters, whether they have been climbing for 30 days or 30 years. I have NEVER said I have any particular expertise when it comes to ethics. I DO NOT maintain that Pope and Dwayner should not be able to say what they think, but only that they should not be allowed to carry on in a way that appears intended to stop others from doing so. I ENCOURAGE others to express their opinions and to engage in debates on this site. *A famous song by either Snakefinger or the Residents. Good stuff!

I am sure somebody could write a better poll.

JayB wrote:

Daler wrote:

If there is to be some effort to put some thoughtful discussion into actual bolting issues, I would suggest that this thread be broken out into a couple of sub-threads. Take the "is there or is there not a problem with bolting cracks" posts, and send them to a new thread. Or Daler's mention that he has in fact seen a successful oversite committee that was set up to manage bolting in Eldorado Canyon -- what a great accomplishment! I'd be interested in talking about why it may have worked there and whether or not this may be something we could try here. But I don't think these discussions start off very well by being mixed up in a thread where we are arguing about whether Pope and Dwayner are devisive, whether Cracked is old enough to participate, whether Mattp is willing to tolerate opposing views, or whether Darryl Cramer saw Pope or Dwayner use a hammer.

I agree, Fern has a good idea. Another possibility might be that, for some follow up discussion or for ANY discussion that we might have which threatens to get heated over bolting issues, we might agree that personal attack and the like is not to be allowed and one of these "staunch ethicists" as Figger 8 called them, might volunteer to be a moderator.

Trask, I think you can see from my history on this board that I enjoy debate. There would be nothing wrong with Dwayner, Pope or anybody else playing "Devil's Advocate" but that is not what they choose to do. The Devil's Advocate is one who argues the other side of an issue, for rhetorical purposes, with the implicit acknowedgement that they may or may not actually believe their argument. The Devil's Advocate is not one who flings insulting rhetoric.

I have, on dozens of occasions, carefully composed what I thought was a thoughtful essay on some aspect of the bolting issue only to have you or your buddy Dwayner come back with some juvenile rhetorical snip that showed you were utterly unable or unwilling to read or consider what I wrote. I don't see much reason to try to do so, here in this thread, where the current topic is whether or not there is any point in trying to be thoughtful. Answer me this, Pope: do you really maintain that the clever quips and put-downs you and Dwayner spray all about are intended to foster any exchange of ideas?

Call me delusional, but I have this fantasy that the people who seek to be the self-appointed police force might first discuss their proposed "restoration" efforts and that the discussion could be handled in a way that would allow the parties who installed the offending routes, or those who think they are good climbs, to take part. I have this fantasy that even Dwayner might be mature enough to talk about how he decries the gridbolting at a place like Nevermind Wall, without simply throwing insults at the cowards who climb there. I have a fantasy that, even if it leads nowhere, we could discuss the future of bolting at a place like Banks Lake. I may well be fooling myself because, thus far, we have been utterly unable to have these discussions.

Pope, Being civil, I will ask you why it is that you can't see that the point here is that bolting cracks is NOT a big issue at Index. Yes, EVERYBODY ON THIS BULLETIN BOARD AGREES THAT CRACKS SHOULD NOT BE BOLTED. DAMN NEAR EVERY CLIMBER IN WASHINGTON AGREES. Do you have some kind of knee jerk feedback loop going when you seem utterly unable to recognize that just about everybody agrees with you? If you want to join Mitch so that you and he can be the self appointed police force at Castle Rock, I can't stop you. But don't try to fool people into thinking that a large number of Washington's crack climbs are in danger of being bolted -- they aren't.

I see no point in going back to clean up this thread, Cracked. I would suggest, however, that we might try to fashion some ground rules and host a reasonable discussion in some future thread. And you are right: iron fisted moderating will probably be needed, at least at first, if we are ever going to have a discussion of highly controversial and emotional issues.

I already offered my suggestions. If Pope or Dwayner or anybody else insists on continuing to deliberately sabatage every discussion of this issue (and I think they are indeed being deliberate about this), they should be kept out of at least some of these discussions. To me, it is first of all a matter of free speech - others on this site have a right to discuss bolting issues and Dwayner and Pope, for some reason, do not want this to occur. They have continually set out to interrupt almost every attempt at a reasonable discussion. Second of all, it is a matter of community organization and public relations. Does cc.com do the climbing community any favors by constantly fostering a bunch of antagonistic rhetoric that has done absolutely nothing to solve any issue, but which is likely to alarm any uninformed reader who may read this garbage and think there is a major bolt war going on that threatens to disrupt civil life or destroy the natural beauty of Leavenworth? On the other threads, everybody is saying "what's up with MattP, the "liberal" who doesn't want to hear opposing ideas. Maybe they are right. Maybe I am just tired of all of this. But the fact is, I think there ARE people on cc.com who are interested in these issues, and are interested in more than simply "stirring the pot." I am open to other suggestions, but at this point I can't think of any.

In a word, Yes. You are clever, relentless and, more than anything else, manipulative. You have found a way to constantly push buttons and you damn near refuse to let an opportunity to ruin a thread pass you by. P.S. I believe I DO understand something about the connection between bolts and area closures and I do not think that the connection is anywhere near as simple as you state it to be. Some conservationists who are not outdoor recreational users advocate closing some public lands to climbing, but they also include hiking and fishing and hunting in their list of detrimental activities. It is not bolts that they object to. Most land managers don't even know what a bolt is, until some bolt-hating climber or an erupting bolt war brings the issue to their attention. Certainly, some sport areas have generated traffic, parking, erosion, or other impact issues, and these have lead to some area closures. However, I don't think that bolting practices have been, in themselves, directly responsible for very many area closures (maybe none).

Get a grip!!! Just yesterday, Pope complained that the moderators on this board would never permit him to have his discussion of "route restoration," (his euphamism for pulling bolts) because they don't want him to wage his campaign against rap bolting. But look at this thread, the one that was started after at least a half a day's banter back and forth about whether or not we might one day be able to have a civil discussion about bolting issues: Pope and Dwayner have once again been the main motivators in steering the discussion away from any thoughtful consideration of real issues. Pope and Dwayner find amusement in "stirring the pot" when they ridicule Cracked for his defense of sport climbing, but they really lose it when they try to say he isn't old enough to have any valid perspective, and he therefor can't tell them anything about ethics or history. Yes, Dwayner is correct to note there was an active climbing scene at Smith Rock State Park before sport climbing took hold, and it IS beautiful, but WTF? He (Dwayner) says he might support having Smith Rock State Park closed to climbing because it hasn't been developed in what he thinks is a responsible way. Is that the "perspective" that he thinks Crack lacks? One of America's most popular climbing areas should be closed because Dwayner doesn't like bolts? Pope, in response to Cracked's pointing out that in fact every young climber out of the gym does not go out and buy a drill and start putting in bolts can only offer a sneer? Is that evidence of a willingness to have his reasonable discussion of "route restoration?" After three years where the anti-bolt jihad warriors have been saying that sport climbers are pussies and rock rapists, that they are going to show up at the crags with their crowbars and if they see some punk with a drill he better run, and generally going out of their way to make these discussions as ascerbic as possible, does Pope's assertion that the most vile and threatening language in these discussions has come from the "bolti ng advocates" reflect any measure of reality? Then we get to this thing about bolted cracks. Daryl has made the point, I think, that this malignant cancer is not as bad as the anti-bolt hyperbole would have us believe, but this is a whole separate issue that I'll ignore it just now. The significant point that I wish to note is the mere fact that Mister E thought to bring it into this thread, as if there were some controversy about it. As far as I can remember, there has not been anybody on this board who has advocated bolting cracks or complained when someone wanted to removed a line of bolts that had been placed next to a crack, in three years of cc.com. Even if it is true that some rap-bolting vandal bolted a crack at Index recently, why are we arguing about bolted cracks in this thread? Once again, I would ask how it might be that we should moderate these kinds of discussions. ScottP offers a reasonable suggestion (a practice that I have tried with almost no success, but it is a good idea none-the-less), but what else might anybody suggest?

Every single time I have called for civility in a bolting debate on this bulletin board, the anti-bolt folks have said I was trying to prevent them from expressing their points of view. Might we precede any attempt to address the substantive issues with some discussion of what might be the ground rules for such a discussion?

Pope- I agree that you are right to question whether we could ever succeed in any self-regulation, and whether any discussion on c.com would even help with such an effort. However, what is your option? You can head over to Leavenworth and pull some bolts with Mitch once a year, or I suppose you can start contacting land managers to try to get places like Vantage shut down, but if you actually want to impact what other climbers do, I don't think there are very many options.

As this is thte "restoration" thread, I should add a comment to your report that you recently spent a day helping Mitch restore (erase) a couple of bolted climbs. I hope you chose the target climbs well. I would see it as a sign of great progress if we were able to have an open discussion of the climbs, and of yours and Mitch's goals in erasing them, without having to engage in personal attack. I may be dreaming, but you gotta start somewhere, right?

How do we seek to limit bolting in sensitive areas? I don't know. First of all, I suppose, we have to find some general agreement on just what areas ARE sensitive. If you try to tell a whole generation of climbers that the entire state of Washington is an inappriate place for sport climbing, they are going to blow you off and go about their way. If you then start pulling bolts out of their favorite climbs at Little Si or Vantage, you are just going to generate a bolt war and even if you succeed in getting them to stop installing bolts at those particular areas, they are still going to move on and start in on other crags. So I think part of the answer to your question lies in trying to figure out a way to identify where sport climbing should be allowed and where it should not be. Once you have identified crags where sport climbing is OK, or for that matter others where it is not, there will probably be greater difficulty in figuring out how to limit the proliferation of bolts. There have been some efforts to set up climbing oversite groups at various crags around the country and I think they have, at best, achieved mixed results. On balance, I think they have probably been more effective at chanelling climbing development than have land-manager shut downs and bolt-wars, though, because when a given area gets too contentious or it is closed, for whatever reason, the climbers just move on to somewhere else and resume "business as usual." Whatever may be the answer, I believe that changes in attitude and behavior are probably best sought through the respectful exchange of ideas and information. You don't make progress by ridiculing climbers who, as you say, expect a bolt in the middle of every hard move. If you aren't interested in trying to bring climbers together for reasonable discussions, I think you are left with two choices: chop bolts or promote area closures. In my view, bolt wars and climbing area shut-downs have brought attention to the issue but have utterly failed to solve anything. The proliferation of bolts and the frequency with which crags are developed without much thought for environmental impact or other related issues is, if anything, increasing rather than diminishing. THE NEW ROCK CLIMBING FORUM could be a very useful place to exchange information and discuss how we might come together as a user group to address these important issues. However, most people (on all sides of this issue) think I am naive to think anything good could come from any discussion on cc.com. What do you think? Might it ever be possible to have an on-line discussion where we could discuss these issues without having to resort to insulting rhetoric and personal attack?

Pope, I agree that good routes can and have been put up from the ground up. California does not have a monopoly on the good climbs, and most of the "classics" in this state were put up from the ground up, too. However, for bolt-dependent climbing, I do not advocate ground up installation of crag routes. And as to the use of hooks for installing bolts, I continue to think that there is rarely going to be (and rarely has been) a situation where the bolt ends up in the best place for someone who is going to follow, leading that same pitch, without the hook. Yes, you will get a bolt at a stance where there is at least enough of a purchase to grab a hook from your rack (or maybe from your teeth), but the far more comfortable stance shortly above or below, where there is no good hook move, will be ignored by the leader using hooks to place their bolts. I agree with what you are saying about how modern climbers expect there to be a bolt at every crux move. I'd venture to say that most modern climbers agree with you, too. That is largely why they are generally carefull to distinguish what level they can lead and say "I can lead 5.12 sport; 5.10 trad." Yes, people who only climb closely bolted sport climbs are missing a lot of what climbing has to offer. Those who refuse to climb such climbs are missing out as well.

Tex- You misunderstand me. I think it is cool what folks are doing these days. Fast and light is a great way to go. I think the obsession with it, however, and the promotion of fast and light as the ideal to which every young climber should aspire to, is misguided. If you want to go do big climbs without taking a first aid kit or bivouac gear, that is great. If you suggest that somebody who doesn't know what they are doing should try to do the same or they are not as good as you (I don't know whether you have done this or not), I think you are egotistical and irresponsible. Who benefits from the fact that the cover of climbing magazine screams "fast and light" and that everybody is more interested in talking about how fast they climbed Mount Stuart, car to car, than they are in talking about which might be the most fun variation on the route? Those who are fit and fast and who take personal satisfaction in being so don't need to have their great accomplishments glorified in the magazines or on this website. I am vastly oversimplifying, and one might even say I am being needlessly offesive, but I think the big momentum for all of this "fast and light" discussion comes from climbers who seek recognition or sponsorship, and vendors who want to sell gear and gu.